fated
by alarics
Summary: The flowers strewn across the floor wilt and somewhere out there, a baby with its fate etched across its bones cries into the blackened night —a reincarnation story, for Sophy.


_a/n: well, would you look at that. two months in and i'm already late for gge, this is feburary's fic that probably should have been up two days ago. this is for sophy (Slytherin Cat), because she's always lovely. this probably wasn't what you were expecting, but i hope you enjoy it nonetheless, darling!_

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"if I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk through my garden forever" —Alfred Tennyson

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**i**. Scotland, 1001

The era of sculpting the future and building castles to the sky is upon them, when it begins. They don't know why and they don't know how, most times they don't even realise it's happening, but every single one of them is fated to die too young and too tragically.

They are born with their destiny engraved into their bones and carved across the core of the earth; destined to fall in love and never make it out, and this time she is intelligent and he is sly but still they don't survive and they don't think they ever will.

Although they don't remember, some days Rowena feels a tide of inevitably hit her when she thinks of the future, Salazar feels an inexplicable rush of sadness when he passes budding daffodils and when they exchange glances it feels like the whole world is pressing in on them.

As they craft corridors that stretch on forever, they grow closer together and as they sit together drawing out the plans for a better future, a brighter future, they can feel something intangible growing between them.

One day, Salazar takes her hand and Rowena says yes and perhaps it sounds like forever and they both know it can't be true but they're far too young and genius to be scared by silly little things like destiny.

She reads books, he plays chess and one day together, they plant foxgloves in the grounds together and he turns to her and whispers "if I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk through my garden forever," and she replies "eternally," and they wonder why those words resonate so deeply.

Two months later it begins to fall apart.

Perhaps he was too ambitious and she too rash, but all it comes down to is them standing in this godforsaken corridor watching everything they've ever built crumble to the ground.

"You can't stay," Helga warns, Godric nodding at her shoulder and Rowena can't decide whether she wants to curse her friends or banish him from the castle, doing the right thing for their futures.

"We are a non-selective school, we made a promise to educate everyone, no matter what their background is. If you don't like it, you can leave," Godric nods, standing shoulder to shoulder with Helga and Rowena kind of hates them in that moment.

"You must leave," Helga repeats, facing him.

"It's the only option," Godric looks at his old friend with pity for a moment, before that old lion's courage rears its heads and his eyes glint with anger again.

"If that's how you _all_ feel," Salazar says, his eyes landing meaningfully on Rowena, "I'll leave. I'll never turn back."

Every eye turns to Rowena and she feels the weight of the world on her shoulders.

All she wants to do is tell Salazar to stay or tell him she'll go with him, anything to stop him walking out of her life for good, but she knows that if he stays, this friendship, this agreement and everything they've ever built up will smash to pieces further, to an irreparable point. She can feel the whole world pressing in on her and Helga's expectant gaze, Godric's sympathetic look and Salazar's saddened stare boring in on her. She knows what she has to do. No matter the consequences

"This isn't going to work, Salazar. Walk away," she utters, for the sake of them all and she hates herself, but she knows that this was always going to happen and so does he.

The corridor turns silent for a moment as the gravity of what Rowena has just said sinks in.

"Goodbye then, friends," Salazar spits and he walks away from them all, out into his future. The three of them turn their back, wearier and wiser than they were before. They have pupils to inform, a school to reshape and a legacy to continue.

Salazar walks the corners of the Earth and Rowena teaches from her cerulean classroom, both pretending the other doesn't exist. They should both live for a hundred more years, but it's hard to do so when you're shattered to pieces within.

Years later, Salazar contracts Dragon Pox and dies in a hillside cabin. Alone. At the moment he passes on, Rowena feels something stir in her chest.

That night she lies on her cold bed and sobs into the darkening night. She is alone. She is broken. The last word on her lips is 'Salazar' before she passes on to the next life.

Rowena and Salazar reunite in the stars above, the world mourns the loss of two heroes and somewhere out there, a new life begins.

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**xvi**. London, 1666

Some days, Alice feels like she's hurtling through life, hurtling through shades of aureolin and harlequin at an unimaginable speed, hurtling until her eyes feel like they're going to pop out of her skull and she has no idea when she can possibly stand still. Other days, she feels as though she is chained to the very core of the Earth, every single move restricted and already decided upon by the gods.

Today is one of the latter days, she thinks, as she scrubs the kitchen floor, contemplating why nothing ever feels like mere coincidence.

A clattering from the front door distracts her, as George enters the kitchen from his job at the bakery down the road and pulls her up with a flick of his golden hair and one of those smiles that makes her heart sing.

Kissing her chastely on the cheek, George presents a small bouquet of freshly picked buttercups from behind his back and hands them to her. "They were growing by the side of the house," he says, "and they made me think of you."

Alice glances down at the handful of yellowing flowers and a brief memory of wilting foxgloves or maybe even a bunch of forget-me-nots crosses her mind in a flash, but she puts it away, returning the brief kiss on the cheek.

"You know," George suddenly blurts, achingly familiar yet foreign words falling from his lips, "if I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk through my garden forever."

"And I'd walk with you," Alice whispers, wondering why she can feel the stars aligning above them. George presses her lips to hers and they wonder why it feels like goodbye.

That night a fire breaks out in the bakery down the road, which swiftly spreads down their street. London is ablaze. The sirens ring into the blackened night.

Alice and George don't awake, their bodies simply entwine closer together as the poisonous gas begins to lick at their lungs. The yellow buttercups on the kitchen table shrivel up in the flames.

The next day, their ashes are scattered across London and a young boy cries the name 'Alice' through the night.

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**xli**. New York, 1929

"Darling," Robert says lightly, staring down at Evelyn as she sleeps between silken sheets in their four poster bed, dreaming of flashes of proud standing foxgloves, choking fire and an eternity long heartbreak that has refracted across the whole of time.

She mumbles some incomprehensible word that _maybe_ sounds like one of those so-called "spells" Robert's addled grandfather used to tell tales of and _maybe_ sounds like a forgotten memory of an unfamiliar ancient castle surfacing in his brain, but Robert shakes the sense of déjà vu away, as Evelyn sits up blearily.

"I've got something for you," Robert smiles as she places a kiss upon his cheek, "a present."

Evelyn's eyes widen in delight and she thanks him in a gentle voice, as he hands her a small navy box lined with velvet. Inside, sits a jewelled brooch depicting a daffodil and Evelyn's heart tugs at a distant memory of a bouquet of buttercups, before settling upon the adoring eyes of the man she loves in front of her.

"Thank you," she breathes, attaching it to the edge of her silken nightdress, "it's beautiful."

"I saw it when I was in New York, returning from the Jazz Club. It reminded me of the daffodils under the window of the west wing that the gardeners planted; the ones you said were your favourites."

"And how very right you were," she replies, kissing him again, before blurting the unfamiliar familiar words that just seem so _right_ at the moment, "if I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk through my garden forever."

"Forever and ever," Robert replies, wondering why those words send a flurry of sadness down his spine, "anyway, you better get ready my love! We're supposed to be lunching with the Fitzgeralds today, aren't you excited to catch up with dear Lucille?"

"As long as you're there," she replies, and they take each other's hands as they ring the bell for the butler and walk out into their future.

Two days later the stock market crashes. The economy spirals out of control. Bankruptcy is no longer a think of nightmares. It's a reality.

Robert loses his fortune. Every last penny of it. All those opals and pearls can't help him now, those fur stoles and Persian rugs, those lavish dinners and diamond brooches. He has nothing. He has to learn to live as a _mortal _now.

Evelyn tries to pick up the pieces. She can't. No one can.

It is all too much. They have spent their entire lives living in security, senseless security; assured that in times of trouble their money would be enough to guide them through into the night. Where is their salvation now?

One warm day the following June, their mansion is about to be repossessed. They have nothing now. It is all too much. They look at each other and they nod. They _know_.

Evelyn steps outside. She picks a bunch of golden daffodils from their overgrown garden and she clutches them between her fingers. An epitaph, of sorts. Of course they can't afford jewellery anymore and the diamond brooch was pawned long ago to pay the bills. She kisses Robert on the cheek and he promises her that where they're going, everything will shine as brightly as it did before. Evelyn nods and tells him she understands. Side by side, hands entwined, they say their final goodbyes.

Evelyn closes her eyes. Robert wraps his arm around her.

They pull the trigger together.

Out there somewhere, a baby is born screaming into the blackened night, the memories of a kaleidoscopic golden world of jewelled brooches and blood stained petals freshly etched onto his mind, with his destiny painted across his bones.

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**lxi. **Godric's Hollow, 1981

It's a year into hiding from the greatest villain of all time, when James presents Lily with a bunch of bewitched forget-me-nots.

It has been a year of hiding behind closed doors and pretending they don't exist, a year of fearing every knock on the door and being unable to trust even their best friends. It's been a year of watching the seasons pass outside their window and not being able to partake in them. A year of watching the flowers bloom and then slowly wilting away and not being able to walk freely amongst them.

"They're the ones you loved in the garden last summer," he tells her, "I picked them and put a temporary preservation charm on them so they'll last until next summer. I just thought the time was right for me to give them to you."

"They're beautiful, thank you James," Lily replies, standing on her tiptoes and kissing him on the cheek, "when did you ever become so sensitive?"

"It's always been there, Lils," he replies, smiling, "I just chose not to broadcast it to the world."

"What would fifteen year old you say?" Lily laughs.

"Well, firstly he'd be thrilled that he final managed to win the heart of Evans and convince her to marry him and secondly, he'd probably think he'd gone soft."

"You know," Lily blurts, echoing someone she can't quite remember, "if I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk through my garden forever."

"Always," James replies, an urge of sadness washing over him for some reason, before Harry's calls from the next room distract them.

Miles away, a young, terrified boy confesses their secret. Voldemort gains knowledge of their location. He visits Godric's Hollow.

James tries to fight him off. Lily runs upstairs. Death hits them both before they catch their breath. The vase of forget-me-nots smashes as a misfired curse hits it. The war is over before their blood is cold.

They reunite in the heavens above and they watch the world celebrate. They watch an orphan grow up alone. They watch a traitor escape. They watch their friends bury them. They watch the flowers wilt on their ground.

They watch a caramel skinned toddler learning to speak. The first word that falls from his lips is 'Lily'. The cycle repeats.

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**lxii. **Scotland, 1998

"You can't stay!" Blaise shouts, his tone angry but his eyes pleading. "You'll die! You'll be killed! You can't tell me you don't _feel_ it!"

"Of course I _feel_ it – I know what will happen. But I can't stand by and let everyone else die. I just can't! It would be wrong, Blaise, don't you see?"

"Do you really think I can stand idly by and watch people die? See the castle I adore being torn apart? Of course I can't, but this is about you and me. If we stay, we will die. We have a chance to get out of this… _cycle_. A chance to break it."

"I wish we could but I have to stay. I just have to. With or without you."

Blaise stands back for a moment and he watches as Daphne, beautiful Daphne stands their defiantly, promising to protect these people that she owes nothing to and wishes he could be more like her. He remembers something about a fiery Ravenclaw or maybe even a courageous New York socialite and how they always had love until the very end and then he realises that he would rather die by her side than live without her.

So Blaise takes her hand and he says "together" and she thanks him but deep down inside, they both know it means goodbye.

And a few hours later, goodbye it is. They are standing at the edge of the courtyard, on the edge of a battlefield that used to be a playground, firing curses left right and centre, when one hits the wall behind them.

It crumbles. They try to run. It's too fast. They fall.

A couple of inches away from Blaise's head, a couple of crushed wildflowers poke through the soil, just surviving the crumbling stone by a couple of centimetres. They look so out of place in such a shadowed, tormented castle which is being slowly torn to pieces by crisscrossing jets of green and red light and they spark a memory of a shattered vase of forget-me-nots or maybe something about foxgloves glinting in the sun, so Blaise stretches out a feeble hand for them, plucking them from beneath the soil.

Handing them to Daphne, she smiles and clutches weakly at his hand, remembering something about buttercups and daffodils. She is warm, she doesn't really feel in pain anymore and she is by the side of the man she loves more than anything in the world.

Perhaps this isn't such a bad place to die.

"Daphne," Blaise says, his voice croaking, quoting _someone_, someone he can't remember, "if I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk through my garden forever."

She looks into those dark, beautiful eyes and she remembers something about perishing in a fire and something like dying of a broken heart and in that moment, she knows she is no stranger to death and she knows that this is it and this was all that was ever meant to happen.

"Forever and ever," she echoes, before the light fades and blackness overtakes her.

Blaise dies a few minutes later, two hours before the battle is won. Their names are etched onto a war memorial by the Black Lake. They are commemorated as heroes.

On another continent, a little girl is growing up with the name 'Blaise' on the very tip of her tongue and a memory of crushed wildflowers slowly fading from her mind.

Their families mourn, the girl grows up, and the cycle continues.

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**xliv.** England, 2021

This time, her hair burns brighter than a flame and his shines like silver; their skin is fresh and new and their eyes gleam with dynamism and youth, but underneath, they are weary.

They are ancient.

They are fated.

Their veins are filled with so many tales of lost love and heartbreak; of dying before their time and tragedy befalling them. They have lived so many lives; they have been mortals and Muggles, witches and wizards and all the hope seems to have faded because everyone that they have ever been, every Rowena and Salazar, Alice and George, Evelyn and Robert, Daphne and Blaise, every James and Lily has been born with their destiny carved into their skin and their fate written between the stars.

Perhaps they whisper in different tongues or smile with different faces, walk with different gaits and dream with different minds; but they are inherently the same. She is fiery and he is lively; she is clever and he is ambitious.

This time, they are born with rivalry that runs back generations between them but a new dawn is breaking. A new era is arising. Their parents want to bring them up in a world without hate. Scorpius and Lily are brought together.

They sit on the grass outside her house and they make daisy chains together, linking each intricate flower together stem by stem; enacting fate petal by petal. As she encircles one around his wrist, she chants "_Salazar, George, Robert, James, Blaise_," and he looks deep into her eyes and replies "_Rowena, Alice, Evelyn, Lily, Daphne_." They are children and they are innocent. These are simply names that they vaguely recount, like characters from a fairy story, but the significance runs deeper.

Somewhere in the clouds above them, everyone they ever were sighs as they prepare themselves for another tragedy to occur. Another two young lovers dying too young and too soon.

As they get older, most of it fades, but some nights he still awakes gasping for air after dreams of ravaging fires and she can't walk past wildflowers without feeling the need to bow her head in mourning. Maybe they don't remember but they are still fundamentally _them_ and everyone that has ever before been them.

As they grow older, they grow closer together and occasional flickers return here and there. They don't remember everything, but a fleeting memory of a diamond brooch when Scorpius smiles, or the image of a shattered vase of blue blooms when Lily touches his arm; memories that don't quite _belong_ in their lives. They don't remember exactly who they were or exactly how they died, but they remember enough to feel trapped.

They remember enough to feel fated.

Scorpius starts drowning himself in Firewhiskey and tobacco when he is sixteen and Lily follows suit. They need an escape, escape from the media pressing in on them and expecting them to be their parents' children, desperate for them to be perfect or villainous or beautiful or sly or everything their parents ever were. Mummy and Daddy tell them just to ignore it, but it's easier for them. They've already made their names, had their legacies. They don't understand what _normal _teenage years feel like.

It's a year after they began breathing in lavender smoke and mixing potions secretly, when fate has almost has its way. They are hollowed, faded and nearly deadened. Everyone they ever where bows their heads from above. The cycle is continuing.

One day as they're sat by the lake, a patch of foxgloves catches his eye and those alien, familiar words of "if I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk through my garden forever," are on the tip of his tongue, but he stops himself. He can't explain why.

Three days after this, Lily leans across the table and kisses him for the first time. As his lips come to life under hers, tasting of destiny and desire, he remembers something about untamed magic and dying of a broken heart and as she pulls away, he can't stop himself muttering _"Rowena_". She looks at him with curiosity for a brief second, before something about building castles and sculpting the future flits across her brain. _"Salazar,"_ she breathes, before running from the room.

He knows where to find her, somehow, standing next to the war memorial that adorns the castle grounds, tracing over the same two names with her dainty fingers. He approaches and she turns around, looking at him with those hazel eyes that perhaps glint grey and maybe should've been dark blue.

"Blaise," she whispers.

"Daphne," he replies.

"George, Robert, James," she breathes.

"Alice, Evelyn, Lily," he echoes.

The world inhales one collective breath.

They stumble towards each other and link hands.

The world exhales.

This time, she is brazen and he is witty; she is fiery and he is ambitious. This time they are magical and this time they remember, but most times they forget. Most times it is nothing but brief flickers of daisy chains and buttercups; a feeling of inevitability as their lives end too soon. This time, they remember everyone they ever were and everyone that was ever separated untimely in their place.

They could have died of a broken heart; burnt in their beds; pulled the trigger themselves; been killed with a jet of green light or perished on the battlefield, but instead they are alive. Battered, perhaps. Weary, maybe. But alive. They have the chance to live, to change their fate and they must take it.

They get off the booze and the drugs and the cigarettes, eventually. It's not easy and some days they nearly fall back into bad habits. But they make it through. They have a fate to overcome. A cycle to break. They have each other.

On their wedding day, Lily clutches a bouquet of daisies, forget-me-nots and wildflowers between her dainty hands. Scorpius draws back her veil and they share a secret smile, sending a prayer up to everyone they ever once were. Buttercups, daffodils and foxgloves grow in the field by the side of the makeshift altar in the garden of the Burrow.

They plant flowers in the back garden of their house. Blaise and Daphne, James and Lily, Evelyn and Robert, Alice and George, and Rowena and Salazar rejoice in the stars above. Lily founds a potion business. Scorpius works at Gringotts. They settle down, they start a family.

The flowers bloom, they grow old together and the cycle is broken.


End file.
